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The white jersey, no doubt bleached so it would shine under the brightest lights it has ever seen, hadn't lost a speck of its splendor.

Blake Bortles' uniform practically gleamed as he jogged triumphantly off the field and through the visitors' tunnel at Beaver Stadium last Saturday.

It was almost as if the gifted and steady Central Florida quarterback had changed it on the sideline to look good for the postgame celebration.

And if he had, that might have made Penn State feel a bit better. Because the way that uniform looked after 60 minutes of football and a 34-31 win for the Knights told the story better than any statistic, better than any of the 507 yards they piled up against a Penn State defense that at times seemed helpless.

You can confuse mediocre quarterbacks into making mistakes. You can intimidate young ones into doing the same.

But if you want to get the best of good quarterbacks, you better hit them.

The Nittany Lions' vaunted defense didn't touch Bortles. Not on its terms, anyway. The Nittany Lions didn't sack him once. They didn't even put much pressure on him. They did nothing to deter him from standing in the pocket, picking apart their secondary.

"The ball is out quick," defensive tackle DaQuan Jones said of Central Florida's well-timed, better-schooled passing attack. "We couldn't get back there as much as we wanted to, and that's definitely something we need to improve on."

If there's one area where an easy argument could be made that this Penn State team is clearly not as strong as it was expected to be, it is in the pass rush.

In fairness, the Nittany Lions have sacked opposing quarterbacks five times this season, and three of them came against Eastern Michigan just a week before the relatively pressure-free Central Florida loss. But the Eastern Michigan and Syracuse offensive lines aren't as stout as Central Florida's, and it's not like the Knights' will be the biggest and best Penn State sees between now and the end of November.

They need to get better. They need to get better fast.

Jones has been hard for opponents to handle up the middle. He has two of the five sacks. Defensive coordinator John Butler has dialed up more blitzes this season than more-patient Penn State defenses traditionally have in the past. But the Knights almost exclusively double-teamed Jones last weekend, and you can only blitz so much, especially when your entire scheme is - and always has been - predicated on generating its pressure on the quarterback from the front four.

It's difficult to believe,

but the Nittany Lions have just one sack from a defensive end this season, and that one belongs to C.J. Olaniyan, a better run stopper than pass rusher. That leaves Deion Barnes with zero, and Penn State's defensive game plan this week should be a simple one: Find ways to get Barnes in the backfield.

We're talking about the defending Big Ten freshman of the year, who led the way with six sacks for Penn State last season. We're talking about a 6-foot-4, 245-pound prototypical end who head coach Bill O'Brien believes will be playing on Sundays before too long. If Penn State needs a player to make an impact - preferably on the ribs of Kent State's quarterback Colin Reardon this week - it's him.

"I think he's playing with great effort," O'Brien said of Barnes. "He's an excellent player. I believe people are running away from him. I think that people are giving the tackles help in protection with him. And I would, too."

If that's the case, Penn State's coaching staff needs to figure out ways to get a pass rush. Keeping the quarterback standing in the pocket can't be as easy as double-teaming Jones and rolling the pocket away from Barnes.

Maybe that involves more blitzing from the linebackers, and guys like Glenn Carson and Stephen Obeng-Agyapong have had some success getting home on the rush.

Maybe that should also involve moving Barnes around. Other teams have lined their best pass rushing end up inside and letting him attack the guard-center gaps. Some will stand their ends up like a linebacker and let them hunt the quarterback in more of a freestyle form.

In short, what the Nittany Lions have done didn't work against Central Florida, and there's little indication it will work when it comes to rushing the quarterback against the better lines Michigan, Ohio State and Wisconsin will put in front of them later in the season.

Offenses are starting to dominate college football the way the Knights dominated Penn State on Saturday, and passing attacks are taking over. The only way to stop the quarterbacks is to hit them, and Penn State's defense better understand that.

Generally, the quarterbacks walking off the field wearing clean uniforms aren't lamenting defeat. The one Penn State faced last certainly didn't.

DONNIE COLLINS covers Penn State football for The Times-Tribune. Contact him at dcollins@timesshamrock.com and follow him on Twitter @psubst.

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